


Comfort, Calling Late

by anactoria



Series: New Year 2013 Fic(let)s [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Drunk Sex, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Semi-Public Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>John knows he’s walking straight into a trap. He knows that if he says ‘yes,’ he’s giving in, like he always does. But that’s all there is, really, isn’t it?</i><br/> </p><p>John and Sherlock have issues. They work on them by shagging in a deserted interrogation room with half the murder squad next door, because they're mature and well-adjusted like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfort, Calling Late

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For [overnightbivouac](http://archiveofourown.org/users/overnightbivouac/pseuds/overnightbivouac), who requested, 's/j, public sex? possibly of the drunken there-are-people-in-the-next-room-over variety.'
> 
> Well, this definitely outgrew its ficlet-status some time ago. I suspect it's probably implausible that any kind of celebratory drink would be taking place inside of Scotland Yard, but I've chosen to ignore that, because porn.
> 
> Many thanks to [chibifukurou](http://chibifukurou.livejournal.com) for helping me bash this into shape. Any remaining mistakes are, obviously, my own.

“Suicide made to look like a murder?” Sherlock’s lips twitch, a brief moue that John doesn’t know how to interpret. “Different. Shame he wasn’t cleverer, though.” He glances at his phone. “Only took until lunchtime. Come along, John.” 

The rare moment when he is bright and open—the one that only comes with the solving of a case, or once in a blue moon, in bed—has already dissipated, and John feels a faint pang as it recedes into the distance. The familiar indifference settles back into place on Sherlock’s face, turning it cold as carved stone.

John turns away. The distraught mother weeps on the shoulder of a young female copper new to Dimmock’s team in the corner of the room. Her cheeks are sooty with mascara tears. 

“Is there,” she says, and swallows. “Is there any way you can keep it quiet? Out of the papers, I mean.”

“We’ll do our best,” the policewoman soothes, and John can see it already. A simple sentence poking the first few holes in the sea wall: _the police are no longer looking for anyone in connection with the incident_. And then the flood of questions, endless salt water to bathe the wound without healing it.

“I don’t even know why he _did_ it,” the mother breaks out, voice thinning to a wail. “There’s nobody he wanted to hurt that much. He wouldn’t. He _couldn’t_.”

“Well,” the policewoman says, cautiously, “it sounds as though he wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time he died, but our best guess at the moment is—he didn’t want anyone to know how depressed he’d been. He was trying to protect you all.”

She glances in their direction, as though for confirmation, and John feels his fingers twitch reflexively. As though he could physically hold Sherlock back from opening his mouth and saying something that will trample all over this poor woman’s grief.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, though; he just looks appalled. And John feels something clench inside him.

John nods at the policewoman. “Looks like it.” Then he turns on his heel. “Alright,” he says to Sherlock. “Let’s go.”

True beauty approaches ugliness, they say. It’s a truism, and John never thought to question it, before. Sometimes, though, looking at Sherlock, he wonders whether it’s actually the other way around.

 

\----

 

Li Fuyan, a Chinese man stabbed by a mugger, survived for four years with a knife-blade rusting in his head before doctors figured out that something was wrong and removed it. John remembers reading about it in the paper, years back, not long before—well. 

He’d been looking for cases—Sherlock in one of his ranting, stir-crazy moods—and it hadn’t been relevant to them, but the combination of its medical nature and sheer weirdness had been enough to make John take a second glance. At the time, he wondered what it must’ve felt like; how the guy could’ve spent years walking around one sneeze away from oblivion and never even noticed.

Now, he thinks he knows.

He forgave so easily, in the end. It didn’t really seem as though he had a choice. He’d never needed anything, loved anything, like Sherlock. And if someone offered him the chance to take it back tomorrow, he’d look at them as if they were loopy and shut the door in their face.

Grief, though. You don’t get a refund on grief—even when you find out that it’s invalid. And its edges don’t ever blunt, not really. Not this grief. It sticks around, mostly unnoticed, slicing into him at sudden, unexpected moments. 

In those moments, John still knows he wouldn’t trade Sherlock for all the closure in the world, or even for feeling like the master of his own destiny. But he hates himself, hates himself, for how easily he gave in.

 

\----

 

Dimmock’s outside the house, leaning against a squad car, deep in conversation with a forensics guy who thankfully isn’t Anderson. He glances up as they pass.

“Dropping by HQ later, lads?” he asks. “Bit of an informal thing—couple of drinks, orange juice for the poor bastards still on duty, you know. For Lestrade, celebrate him getting the big job.”

Sherlock makes a face. “I’ve already helped him _get_ the promotion,” he sniffs. “I don’t see why I should have to join in with the compulsory merry-making, too.” 

John takes his arm and starts walking. He looks back over his shoulder at Dimmock. “We’ll be there,” he promises.

 

\----

 

“ _You’ll_ be there, you mean,” Sherlock corrects him, once they’ve rounded the corner. He turns off again, abruptly, at the beginning of the next street, taking one of his backstreet shortcuts, and John follows automatically. “Though why you insist on socialising with those imbeciles at all—”

“Because some of them are nice people,” John says. “And some of them have been through a hell of a lot because of you, and so yes, I did mean _we’ll_ be there. It’s the least you can do.”

Sherlock gives him one of those ‘stupid lesser mortal’ looks. “I still do their jobs for them. I don’t see where an obligation to make small talk factors in.”

“You bloody wouldn’t, wouldn’t you? Selective observation now, is it?”

“Hardly,” says Sherlock, “just faulty reasoning on your part.” Then he stops and swivels so that he’s standing right in front of John, a fraction too close for in public. “So if you want to persuade me, you’re going to have to find some other tactic.”

John glances around at the deserted alleyway, then gives him a look. “Should’ve known.”

They’re past the ‘get a room’ stage—mostly—but sex has pretty swiftly become Sherlock’s second favourite distraction after dead people. (Okay, third, if you count the bits of dead people he still keeps in the fridge as separate.) And John’s pretty happy with that, usually. It’s one area where he doesn’t feel like he’s ten steps behind.

“Are you complaining?” Sherlock steps closer, gets him backed up against the wall of the alley. 

And there it is, the knife-blade; the twist of his own weakness in his guts.

‘Deserted alleyway’ is relative, of course, and this _is_ London. One of Dimmock’s lot, or a random stranger, could pass by at any minute. Sherlock’s mouth is at his temple now, his breath tickling John’s skin, and John feels the thrill of it prickle up his spine, offer to take him over. Sherlock inches back, just far enough to turn that piercing gaze on him, and for a moment John sees himself through Sherlock’s eyes: half-hard in his trousers, lips parted, breathing rapid. Arguments silenced.

He ducks under Sherlock’s arm, twisting out of his reach.

“Yeah, actually,” he says. “I’m bloody starving. Let’s go home.”

He thinks about the silence of grieving houses, about tear-tracks grimy with makeup, all the way back to Baker Street. By the time they get there, he’s almost calm.

 

\----

 

John walks into the living room, pulling on a clean jumper. 

“No,” Sherlock says, without looking up. He changed into his pyjamas as soon as they got home, earlier—possibly some kind of statement; John’s not sure—and he’s been sitting at the kitchen table poking at some unidentifiable lumps of tissue sitting in petri dishes ever since.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Yes I do. You’ve got that look.”

“What look?” asks John, but he catches himself trying, involuntarily, to school his expression into indifference, anyway. 

Sherlock arches an eyebrow.

“Bastard,” John says, and it’s affectionate, but there’s still the itch of something real beneath the surface of it. Perhaps it comes out in his voice, because Sherlock keeps looking at him.

“You’re angry because I won’t come,” he says, after a moment.

“Not the biggest deductive leap you’ve ever made, I’d guess.”

Sherlock ignores him. “Perhaps because you resent that you yourself still feel obliged to engage in pointless socialising—though that’s not likely; your pub nights with Stamford are no less pointless, and you enjoy those. More likely, it’s that you fear being pitied for turning up alone. You think people will assume you’re unimportant to me.” And even though he’s sitting down, he actually manages to appear as though he’s looking down his nose at John. “Really, you should be over the need for constant reassurance by now. It’s incredibly tedious.”

John lets out an exasperated breath. “I just think you should show some willing,” he says. “That’s all.”

Sherlock turns back to his petri dishes, but keeps talking. “The Metropolitan Police are, in my experience, as dull as they are incompetent. Why would I want to spend an evening in their company?”

“And you’ve met all of them, I suppose?”

“No; but the ones I don’t know will no doubt be too busy playing stare-at-the-minor-celebrity to be remotely interesting. Lestrade’s not accustomed to drinking much, these days—trying to be health-conscious—and with his reduced alcohol tolerance he’ll be too far gone to hold a decent conversation by the time we get there. And _you’ll_ be too busy making polite chitchat to entertain me, so, once again: no.”

John throws his hands up. “Fine,” he says. “Fine, I give up.”

“It’s bad enough that _you_ insist on going. You’ll only come home drunk and distract me from my experiments by trying to take my trousers off.”

John feels his eyes widen at that. “Oh, so you’re all cerebral and above-it-all again now, are you?” His indignation’s tinged with amusement, though, because _really_. “Because as I recall, it was your idea to shove me up against that alley wall this morning with half the murder squad still round the corner.”

“Hardly half the squad, John,” Sherlock corrects him—but his expression has taken on a thoughtful cast. He’s looking at John the same way he was looking at his specimens a moment ago.

That mixture of thrill and discomfort from earlier—it’s back. John can feel the fizz of it inside him. 

“Oh, no,” he warns. “Don’t go getting any ideas. No way.”

But Sherlock is hopping to his feet. “The taxi’s just arrived,” he says. “Tell the driver to wait, John. I’ll be five minutes.”

 

\----

 

John waits on the landing and tries to convince himself that he’s not going along with this. He’s not Sherlock’s plaything. He’ll draw a line and he will fucking well say _no_.

It lasts until Sherlock comes out of the bedroom, and the focus of his eyes feels like burning and John can’t tear his gaze away from the white triangle of skin at the open neck of his shirt.

 

\----

 

The taxi ride is bad enough. A minute into it, Sherlock’s hand is on his thigh, fingers creeping across to stroke at the inner seam of his trousers. John shifts in his seat and tries not to meet the driver’s eyes in the mirror.

When they arrive, he tells himself that that has to be the end of it, for now; they’re in public, after all. But Sherlock’s hand brushes the small of his back as he takes off his coat and the touch lingers like a brand. Sherlock’s lips are at his ear as he leans in to murmur something purposefully bland—which is somehow more annoying than any string of barbed comments—and the whisper of his breath is as intimate as fingers slipped beneath a waistband.

John’s done for. He knows that already. It’s just a question of how long he can put off admitting it.

With some difficulty, he disentangles himself. 

“I’m getting a drink,” he says.

 

\----

 

Sherlock doesn’t follow him over to the table. He leans against the wall, just inside the door, and watches. John feels like prey.

 

\----

 

‘Drinks’ turn out to be plastic cups of cheap Tesco red. John’s no wine buff, but he’s pretty sure it’s no more than one step up from the stuff that comes in a box: aromatic bouquet of lighter fluid; aftertaste of piss. He’s sipping gingerly from his cup when he sees Donovan approaching, and feels his heart sink a little.

He doesn’t hate her. Doesn’t even resent her that much anymore. It’s just that she seems to feel obliged to make a show of friendliness whenever they run into each other, and John—well. John doesn’t need any more reminders of the past tonight.

By the time they’ve gone through the polite motions, he’s near the bottom of his drink, and he’s glad to excuse himself to get a refill.

He catches Sherlock’s eyes on him as he crosses the room. Sherlock isn’t talking to anyone—which is probably a mercy—just standing by himself, watching John with a mild, patient expression that looks entirely unnatural on him. John gives him a questioning glance, and Sherlock just raises an eyebrow and keeps right on watching him. It’s not a come-hither look, exactly—it’s frank and unashamed, not seductive—but then it doesn’t need to be. John feels pinned like an insect on a board, and he feels caressed by hot fingers of want, and he wonders what exactly the diagnostic criteria for Stockholm Syndrome are.

He turns away from Sherlock, and tops up his drink.

 

\----

 

Several drinks later, John is chatting to Lewis and Mehra, two new recruits who have managed to take a liking to him despite—well, despite Sherlock. Mehra’s pretty, sharp-eyed with a sharp wit to match, and once upon a time John would probably have been trying to get her phone number. Lewis is an amiable ginger with a faint Welsh accent and a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to hold his booze. Spying John’s empty cup, he gets to his feet.

“Refill?”

“Cheers.”

That leaves John alone with Mehra—and that’s when Sherlock chooses to make his appearance. John feels an arm snake round his waist.

“John,” Sherlock murmurs, “can I _borrow_ you for a minute?” 

That emphasis—there’s an edge to it, and in another mood John might take it for insecurity. Hell, even now it’s difficult to resist the impulse to promise and reassure. But tonight it sounds, more than anything, proprietorial: _remember who you belong to_.

 _No_ , John wants to say. _Actually. You’ve got me all the time. You can wait a minute. Just this once._

But then Sherlock is curling his fingers beneath the bottom of John’s shirt, and discomfort and desire thread through him and he feels like they’re tattooed on his skin for everyone to read and _oh, fuck_.

Stiffly, he gets to his feet. The room wobbles a little. Christ, he didn’t think he’d had that much to drink. 

“Sorry,” he tells Mehra. She smiles and shrugs, and John lets Sherlock guide him out of the room.

 

\----

 

He leans against the corridor wall while Sherlock fiddles with the lock of a nearby room, trying to will himself back into sobriety. He only succeeds in making himself feel drunker, and a bit more foolish.

Sherlock gets the door open in short order, and then he’s crowding up into John’s personal space, steering him inside. John hears the click of the light switch. Blinks as he realises they’re in one of the interrogation rooms. There’s a mirrored panel on one wall. Someone could stand in the dark on the other side; watch them unobserved.

It’s all a bit creepy. On the list of creepy things they’ve done, though, this wouldn’t even make the top ten. And John would be able to push that aside, normally, just put it down to life with Sherlock—or even find the germ of a thrill in the wrongness of it, in how easy it would be for them to get caught. But the way the lighting in the room turns Sherlock’s face cadaverous—carves stark hollows beneath his cheekbones and pools shadows in the sockets of his eyes—won’t let him. The image deepens that old throb of grief; draws the unease that’s been welling in him all night up to a head and makes it spill out of him.

He takes a step back—further into the room, but out of Sherlock’s grip.

“No,” he says. 

Sherlock blinks at him. John steadies himself with one hand against the wall.

“No,” he repeats. “I’m not letting you do this. Just—drag me off and have your way with me so you can show the world you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger. I mean, they already know that, everybody fucking does, and it’s just—I’m not—no.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Sherlock gives a put-upon sigh. “John, you need to stop caring so much what people think.” A beat. “Or _pretending_ to care. I don’t know why you still feel the need; it’s immensely dull.”

John swallows. “Yeah, well, maybe that’s not what it’s about. Maybe you should start caring a bit more about what _I_ think.”

“I know what you think,” Sherlock tells him. “I know what you think you think, and I know what you really want.” His eyes meet John’s again, then, and his petulant expression sharpens into something else. 

It never quite stops being frightening, that scrutiny—even after all this time, even now, when there’s nothing Sherlock could put him through that could be worse than what he’s already done. And it holds John transfixed for a moment, dries his throat so that when he opens his mouth to argue nothing comes out.

“Control,” Sherlock is saying, then. “This is about control.”

He’s up in John’s personal space again, then—his proximity and body heat occasioning a shiver of arousal across John’s skin, despite himself—but his posture has relaxed. It’s not predatory any more. He looks—curious, and John can’t help but sag back against the wall and say, “Go on, then. What are you on about?”

Sherlock stays where he is. “You don’t mind not having it,” he says, “and that bothers you. You’re afraid of it.” His voice drops, turns dark and inviting. “That’s why it never occurred to you that it wasn’t having _my_ way with _you_ that I had in mind.”

He presses closer. His eyelids flutter halfway closed; his words are warm breath against John’s ear. John’s pulse speeds up. He feels the beat of it in his throat and knows he’s falling.

“So why don’t you?” Sherlock goes on. “Take control? Let everyone know?” He smirks, watching John with half-lidded eyes. “Mark me. Mess me up.” And just those words, spoken in that voice, are enough to have John half-hard in his trousers, breath catching with arousal.

It costs him an effort to shake his head. “I’m not that easy,” he says.

A brief, hard stare. A blink. Then Sherlock pulls back from him, expression hardening. “Fine.” 

And he sounds just pissed-off and petulant enough for real disappointment, and before John knows what he’s doing he’s reaching out, grabbing Sherlock’s wrist and pulling him close again.

He knows he’s walking straight into a trap. Sherlock might be offering him an easy out from his issues, but John would be daft to think that that’s out of any concern for his own feelings. He knows that if he says ‘yes,’ he’s giving in, like he always does. But that’s all there is, really, isn’t it?

He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again. 

Reaches up. Twists his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and pulls him down for a hard kiss.

“One condition,” he says, breathing hard, when they break apart. “No talking.”

“John—”

“I’m serious. People are going to walk past here to go to the loos. I don’t want us getting caught with our pants down.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says. “Yes, fine. Now will you please just fuck me?” There’s an edge of desperation in Sherlock’s voice, and however deliberate it might be, it makes John want to kiss him again. He does, and it’s wet and messy and desperate, and the way Sherlock’s mouth opens for him and Sherlock’s eyes slip closed feels like walking on water.

Miraculous. Impossible. Like a really fucking quick route to drowning.

By the time they come up for air, John’s arse is pressed up against the edge of the table and Sherlock’s hands are at his fly, long fingers working open the button of his trousers. Sherlock’s eyes fly open in what—John flatters himself—might actually be surprise when John’s fingers close around his wrists and pull them away.

If he’s going to be manipulated into doing what Sherlock want—and he already has, no doubt about that—he’s damn well going to take what Sherlock’s offering. 

“Not until I say so,” he half-whispers, half-growls, and pulls Sherlock in closer to kiss his neck. His mouth is kiss-swollen and his cock is rock-hard against John’s hip. 

The desperation’s real, then. 

John digs fingers into his hips, presses his teeth to Sherlock’s skin and sucks hard enough that there’s a visible mark when he pulls away.

It’ll bruise. It’s a bit teenage, he knows, and in some other mood Sherlock would probably sneer at him for it. The thought of it, though—showing up like a little island of purple against all that creamy paleness, as though John’s mapping undiscovered territory, the first person to mark it out on a blank page—goes through him like fire, and he can’t help but do it again. Judging by the way Sherlock moans and shifts against him, he’s not complaining, either. His hands hover at John’s hips for a moment, fingertips brushing over fabric, and he makes a soft noise of frustration before letting them drop back to his sides.

Time to take pity on him, John thinks.

As if that’s anything like the term for it.

“Alright,” he breathes. “You can touch.”

Sherlock is on his knees in one smooth movement. Has John’s trousers open in seconds. Mouths at the front of his boxers; presses his face there and just breathes for a moment. And the waiting is almost unbearable, so John curls his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and tightens them and—

—hears footsteps.

Quick and staccato, in the corridor outside. A woman in high heels. Then there’s another set, heavier, followed by a whispering of voices. It sounds like they’re having an argument.

Donovan and Anderson. Oh, shit.

The footsteps slow as they pass the door. John’s heart skips. Christ, what if there’s light visible under the door? What if they _heard_ something?

Sherlock’s hands are still busy, tugging at John’s boxers until his cock springs free. John twists his fingers, hard, mouthing, ‘fucking _wait_.’ Sherlock glares, but, to his credit, doesn’t make a sound.

“What’s—” John hears, outside.

Then, “Don’t change the bloody subject, Steve.”

The footsteps retreat, fading away down the corridor.

And then Sherlock’s mouth is on him, warm and wet and the sweetest kind of relief, because despite the threat of being caught he’s still so hard he fucking aches.

God, he’s as bad as Sherlock. They’re both so fucked up it’s ridiculous.

Sherlock has his eyes closed in concentration. The dark sweep of his lashes casts long shadows on his cheeks. He works John steadily for a moment, then does something swirly and knee-weakening with his tongue and pulls back, so his lips are just caressing the tip. John feels his hips cant forward instinctively—desperately—and he growls and pulls back, attempting to wrench back some semblance of control.

At that, Sherlock opens his eyes. At some point, John realises, he’s managed to get the zip of his own trousers open—but his free hand just hovers there, not touching, not moving. He glances up at John through lowered lashes, as though asking permission, and even though John knows, _knows_ he’s being shamelessly played with, it’s enough of a show of submission to send a shot of arousal straight to the base of his cock.

“Yes,” he whispers, and it comes out harsh. “Fuck yes, touch yourself,” and then he’s dragging Sherlock back in and fucking his mouth hard. When he comes he squeezes his eyes shut with the intensity of it, hard enough that bright spots flare behind their lids.

He returns to himself with the tail-end of a breath leaving his mouth, and isn’t even sure whether or not he’s made a noise.

Sherlock hasn’t moved. He’s stroking himself fast, now, rough, and a moment later he spurts all over his hand and makes a low, moaning sound around John’s softening cock. The vibration of it chases the edge of uncomfortable, and John sags against the edge of the table. Finally, Sherlock pulls back. Raises his hand to his mouth, slow and deliberate, to lick it clean.

He looks a mess. His lips are pink and wet, his shirt in disarray where John pulled it down to suck at his neck. John can already see the pink of incipient bruises on his skin. 

He also looks incredibly pleased with himself. Anyone who glances at him is going to see someone who’s clearly just been well-fucked. And the resentful part of John might actually relish that; might like the idea of not being just Sherlock’s obedient little follower in the eyes of the world. But there’s another part, too, a spring of protectiveness that wells up in him and says _no_ and _mine_ , even though he knows the very idea of wanting to protect Sherlock Holmes is ridiculous.

The part that gives in, every time. The part that forgave. The part that _loves_ , ferocious and helpless with it all at once.

“We’re going out the back way,” he decides.

Sherlock gets to his feet, looks at him. For a moment, John wonders if he’s going to argue—if there’s any more to this game, if there’s a chance in hell John will have the strength not to go along with it—but all he does is shrug and say, “You’ve left your jacket in the other room.”

“Yeah, well,” John sighs. “I’ll get it in the morning.”

One side of Sherlock’s mouth twitches up in a half-smile. He walks out of the door ahead of John, not even bothering to straighten his shirt. Back in control.

John tries to muster up a modicum of anger, or of regret. He ought to feel like the idiot Sherlock’s always telling him he is. He probably will, later. But his discomfort seems to have leaked out of him sometime in the last few minutes, left him hollowed-out and shaky with relief. And, as he follows Sherlock down the corridor, he can’t help feeling as though he’s won something.


End file.
